Q.
My
family uses raw parsley for karpas. Is the brachah on raw parsley
still adama today or perhaps today it is not
eaten
raw and the bracha is shehakol, and I should use something else for
karpas? (I know pesach is far away, but if I wait until the last
minute I'll forget to ask)
thank youA. Although any food that
you recite the Ha’adamah blessing on it and is not suitable for
maror, is in principle fit for karpas use, the Arizal (Shaar
Hakavonos – Pesach, drush 6) exhorts the use of the vegetable named
Karpas, to maintain the importance and meaning of the minhagim
instituted by our sages. (see also Kaf Hachaim 473: 49, Haggada
Moadim Uzmanim p. 46.)
Rashi
(Sukkah
39b) says that Karpas could be translated as cress (Artscroll
translation) which is similar to parsley. However, he heard (from his
rabbis) that Karpas is translated as Apio. Rashi seems to prefer the
first interpretation. Yerushalmi (Shviis 9:1) and many Poskim (Mogen
Avrohom 473: 4 et. al.) also mention the name “petrosilia,”
(Petrishke or petrushil in Yidish) which is parsley (perejil in
Spanish)
However, Chasam Sofer 132
quoting his teacher Rabbi Nosson Adler asserts that the Apio
vegetable quoted by Rashi, is celery (corresponds to the modern
Spanish translation.) An anecdote relates that the Chasam Sofer in
year 5545 spent an early Pesach with his Rebbi in Vienna, that year
the rivers and ground were still frozen. He paid an exorbitant price
for some very hard to find greenhouse grown celery leafs. (Moriah.
Shvat 5750: p. 227 – An acronym quoted in his name for Apio is E-l
Poel Yeshuos Ato)
Machazit HaShekel (473:4) in
name of medical books, and Beis Sheorim 213 concur that Karpas is
celery. Halichos Shlomo writes that Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach when
he was younger ate celery and in his later years had cucumber as
Karpas.
Jastrow and modern Hebrew
dictionaries translate Karpas as parsley, some mention also celery
In
regards to the brocho on parsley, Poskim disagree. Halachos of
Brochos (p. 66) maintains that when eaten with other foods, since
parsley is used to enhance them, it does not require its own bracha.
Other Poskim mention Shehakol since it is not usually eaten raw by
itself (see Mogen Avraham ibid.)
Poskim
warn extensively on eating raw parsley as it is usually infested with
small insects. Avnei Yoshfe ( 7:65: 1) addresses the question of what
brocho one recites on Karpas or Maror grown hydroponically
in
greenhouses to keep the produce insect free.
Horav
Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that if indeed the parsley
leafs were thoroughly cleaned, inspected and .found
insect free, one can use them for Karpas and recite Ha'adama
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a